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How To See Opportunities to Streamline Your Business & Boost Cashflow

Apr 14, 2011 in Articles, Smart Choices

How’s your business doing?

Do you feel like you’re still struggling and the cash is still tight?

Or worse, has the “Great Recession” put your back up against the wall?

Just last week I heard about a colleague whose bank, without warning, called his business operations loan. He’s scrambling and there’s a very real possibility that he will be forced to close his doors before the end of the month.

Scary? Yes. A reason to panic? No.

In reality, you have choices and opportunities open to you right now, even if cash is pinched. But you need to be able to see them…instead of running for cover. In fact, your entrepreneurial side may even enjoy the ride!

It’s really all a matter of mindset … and the actions you choose because of it.

Open Your Eyes to the Opportunities

Choosing a positive, proactive approach to your business, even when things are rough, will enable you to see and focus on the opportunities that are created whenever problems come up.

Opportunities are the brighter side of problems. And they always come together. In the case of a sales slowdown, you’ll have new incentive to look for ways that you can provide solutions your clients need most, and are willing to pay for right now. It’s a creative challenge (and that’s what we entrepreneurs thrive on, isn’t it?)

Fortunes have been made using this simple, positive shift in focus.

An example I’ve seen lately is with how online technology is being used. To save energy costs and provide more convenient training options, trainers are now using online platforms as a “green” alternative to on-site training and seminars.

And it’s working! Everyone wins!

Could you adapt your products or services to benefit and attract customers who really want what you offer, but are on a tight budget?

Think win-win.

Streamline Your Own Business

When times get tough, it can be a blessing in disguise, because that bite in the financial butt is great motivation to do what you should be doing anyway.

In the case of my colleague who may be forced to close his doors, it may turn out to be opportunity for him in the long run.

I happen to know that his present business completely consumes his day (and then some), thus preventing him from working toward new, business expansion projects he really wants to pursue. In his case, being forced to downsize, lose the heavy overhead and start over will immediately free him to go for the new projects without distraction. (These new projects will ultimately be more profitable than his existing business with less demand on his time.)

Have you been putting off a clean-up or restructuring of your business? Now is the perfect time to cut the fat and streamline your efficiency. What could you be doing to strengthen your business? (Or get rid of it and start fresh?)

Here are some areas you may want to consider:

  • Create standard systems that focus time and resources on cash-generating activities. These should be your top priority.
  • Identify and plug any cash leaks in your business. Review all overhead expenses and consolidate or eliminate as necessary for maximum return on investment.
  • Delegate administrative and non-cash generating activities first. Assess the activities that you must do yourself and delegate the rest to existing staff, or consider outsourcing.
  • Automate and outsource wherever possible. This includes determining whether it is worth the substantial expense to carry employees in your business or not.
  • Keep up with your bookkeeping and examine the financial health of your business. Without accurate and up-to-date financial reports, you cannot identify serious weaknesses or emerging opportunities that could sink or bolster your business, not to mention be in a better position to minimize your tax burden.

For those who will step up and choose to streamline operations while providing desperately needed economical solutions for their clients, growth and abundant cash flow are nearly unavoidable.

If you’d like more specific mindset, strategy and tactics you can use to streamline your business and pull in more cash flow in as little as 7 days, take a look at my Cash Flow Mastery online training course specifically designed for small business owners and make this your best year yet!

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Small Business Cash Flow Killer #1: Not Enough Sales

Mar 20, 2011 in Articles, Smart Choices

This is the first of 5 most common small business cash flow killers that so many small business owners complain about when discussing finances.

The good news is, each of the Cash Flow Killers can be quickly conquered by taking simple but focused action.

So let’s attack and conquer the juiciest one first!

Small Business Cash Flow Killer #1: Not Enough Sales

Are there REALLY ever “enough” sales? Every business owner I know wants more. Or, should I say, they want more of the cash flow that comes with more sales.

But if your sales are down and the cash is getting tight, this is no time to sigh and blame the economy. It could be a symptom of some deeper issues coming to light…the kind you DO have control over.

To maximize sales, you must first make it easy for customers to do business with you. How are you doing with that?

Here are some fast ways to put the power of convenience to work for you to boost sales:

  • Make sure they can FIND you online!

You must have a business website, even if you have a local, brick and mortar business. The phone book has been replaced by online searches. If you don’t have a website you are losing sales.

Next, your website needs to be easy for your customers to find when they run a search online. You want to be there when new customers are looking for what you’ve got to sell them! So at bare minimum you need a listing of your business website in all the search engine local directories. Start with Google Places and Yahoo Local.

  • Give them a reason to visit your website

Once they get to your website, reward them by making sure they don’t leave empty handed. Offer coupons or something of value for free.

By using a simple “opt-in” form on your website you can gather prospect names and emails in return for giving them coupons for future purchases or free, useful digital information, such as a downloadable tips sheet.

  • Make it easy for customer to give you their money

Accept credit cards, if you aren’t already. A quick and easy way to do it if you don’t have a merchant account is to use PayPal. You can accept payments online, or you can open a business account that includes Virtual Terminal so you can also accept credit cards at your physical location or by phone.

  • Build a relationship with your existing and future customers.

No matter what size your mailing list is now, start sending out relationship-building communications on a regular basis. People do business with those they know and remember. If they know and like you, they’ll talk about you to their friends too.

Send out physical newsletters, email newsletters, or just short tips. Any and all of these will do the job well. Just be sure to include time-limited coupons, run subscriber-only private sales, or spot-light a specific product or service you offer as part of the info mix. You want to be educating, providing value, along with “invitational” promotions.

Keep your communication short with quick bits of information, and people will respond to them.

 

Can you apply any of these ideas to YOUR business right now and make it easy for more customers to find you AND buy from you? If you can, you’ve taken one big step in the right direction for conquering the #1 Cash Flow Killer and your boosting sales!

Congratulations!

If you’d like more tips on identifying areas where you can kick up your sales and cash flow, get your copy of my brand new FREE interactive, multi-media Cash Flow Audit tool.

=> CLICK HERE for your free Cash Flow Audit tool.


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The BEST Way I’ve Found to Attract More Customers and Beat Your Competition

Feb 08, 2011 in Articles, News Flash, Smart Choices

Have you ever thought about what a little bit of fame could do for your business?

If you were well-known in your field as an expert, what kind of customers could you attract?

Best-selling business authors are assumed to be the best in their field, usually because they’ve written articles and/or published a book. That’s the catalyst that helps get them invited to appear on TV spots or radio talk shows. And you can be sure that that kind of publicity works wonders for their business.

SECRET REVEALED: Business authors don’t write books to make money from the book sales, but to make sales because of the authority and notoriety they get from the books!

But when we think about it, what great feat have they accomplished?

Nothing too difficult, really. They’ve provided some helpful information related to their field of expertise…and made it easily accessible to the public. That’s it!

Guess what?

You can easily (and quickly) do nearly the same thing and start positioning yourself as the go-to authority in your field too! That’s what will help attract high-quality customers to your business like a magnet (and they won’t complain about your prices, either!)

Why So Few Do It

Q: If it’s so easy, why don’t more business owners do it?

A: Because writing a book can be a huge, time-consuming project…when done the hard way, which is how most people do it. It can take a long, LONG time. Most entrepreneurs cannot afford that much time. And once it’s finally written, they don’t know how to get their book published.

But that’s actually VERY good news for you!

With the Internet and online technology, it is quite easy (and MUCH faster than traditional methods) to publish information, whether in writing, as audios, or with videos (or all three!).  You can even SELL your information to create another income stream for your business!

This is exactly what I’ve done in my own virtual bookkeeping business, and it has brought me FAR more high quality clients than I can possibly serve myself. I regularly refer incoming client inquiries to colleagues because I am truly booked solid. (And they always want to know how I’m able to keep pulling in so much business!)

How did I get my business to this point?

Simply by providing helpful, instructional information online surrounding my expertise as a QuickBooks trainer and consultant. I’m just sharing my knowledge using what are called info-products.

And here’s the secret – if you are a professional in your field, you can DEFINITELY do this too. You could start by offering a free or low-priced special report on your company website.

That’s actually how I got started.

And the best part is, once you do it, it’s like having a little salesperson working for your business 24/7! Online technology automates the whole thing.

And I’ve got to tell you, it sure is a nice little bonus to open your email in the morning and find out that you’ve made sales (and found new customers and prospects) overnight while you were sleeping.

Will This Work For YOU?

Creating small, but effective info-products works for ALL kinds of businesses, but it’s especially powerful for service-based businesses.

Because so few people are doing this effectively, creating small but valuable informational products positions you as the obvious expert and the person your prospects will trust and want to do business with when they need your services. In effect, you won’t have any competition!

If you can see how powerful it would be for your business to position yourself as an authority simply by providing useful information geared toward your best customers’ needs, then I highly recommend you serious consider publishing simple information products as lead generators for your business. It’s really quite easy.

And remember, you can even sell the information to create an additional revenue stream. Few ways of marketing your business is sweeter than that!

But I bet you’re wondering, “Where do I begin?”

I’m glad you asked!

This coming Thursday, February 10th at 7:00 PM (Eastern Time) there’s a FREE online webinar that shows you how to create your first info-product fast AND avoid making BIG mistakes that can really backfire on you and actually KILL your reputation.

Even though I’ve been doing this successfully in my business for years now, I’ll definitely be attending this online event. The guy teaching it is (in my opinion) the absolute BEST!

I always pick up time-saving tips every time I attend one of his events.

If you’d like to attend too (remember, it’s 100% FREE), you can get all the details here:

=> Click Here to attend the Webinar

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Two Reasons Why Attending Live Seminars Helps Your Business

Sep 22, 2010 in Articles, News Flash, Smart Choices

1. Live Training

2. In-Person Networking

Nothing can take the place of live training and networking.

Training helps you to keep up with what’s going on in your industry or adapt new strategies that could give your business a fresh angle that puts you miles ahead of your competition.

In-person networking helps you to build strategic alliances and stimulate new ideas that can make a HUGE difference in your business. When you look for ways that you can complement other businesses and make friends in the process, that’s a powerful way to build your business that you just can’t do any other way.

In fact, for many years it’s been my goal to attend at least one major seminar a year. And my business has always prospered from making the investment in attending live events.

This year, I’ll be attending three important training events. And when it comes to getting extremely valuable training AND making important connections by networking, nothing can compare with the event I’ll be attending in Las Vegas November 5-7, 2010

It’s called the Big Seminar (I know, not the most creative name)

If you’ve got a business and you’re trying to use your website as a way to market your business, then I guarantee that learning the best ways to market online EFFECTIVELY will put you MILES ahead of your competition!

(Most businesses have absolutely no idea how to use the Internet to explode their bottom line!)

In fact, this seminar has made a HUGE difference for me in my business.

Ever since I started attending (and using what I’ve been learning) from the Big Seminar several years ago, my revenues have increased…dramatically.

That’s because this is the largest Internet marketing seminar in the U.S. with the best trainers in the industry. All of the faculty members are business owners themselves (many of them self-made multi-millionaires) who are using what they are teaching in their own highly successful businesses.

Doesn’t it make sense to learn from and model those who are already making millions? I think so. In fact, the business owner who runs this seminar, Armand Morin, has an expression worth remembering:

“Success leaves traces.”

Like other seminars, you can learn from the faculty on the stage. But there’s something that makes this one really rock…

You also get to network with the faculty and other extremely successful business owners…it’s actually part of the scheduled program! Many of the people you meet are world class business marketers. And THAT is what has kept me coming back year after year. I’ve made some amazing connections that have had a direct effect on my bottom line.

I never could have been able to meet such influential people any other way.

In fact, this seminar has created more success stories than any other seminar in the history of Internet Marketing.

The only sad part is that this is the LAST Big Seminar (after 7 years straight!)

But…

It’s going to be a BIG finale worth remembering!

See what I mean and get all the details here:

http://bit.ly/Big-Seminar

I know I wouldn’t miss it for anything! Will I see you there?

If so, let me know, and we’ll get together!

I’ll introduce you to my friends and we can brainstorm some ways to get YOUR website boosting sales and being the vehicle to take your business to a whole new level of success in the coming year! :-)

Hope to see YOU there!

http://bit.ly/Big-Seminar

Gabrielle

PS – Even if you can’t make it, it’s worth getting onto the mailing list because between now and when the Big Seminar begins in November, there will be completely free live online training calls with each of the faculty members for FREE! So check out the speakers and then make sure you attend the free one-hour training that Armand will do with that person… and take notes!

Sign up for the free training here:

http://bit.ly/Big-Seminar

Big Seminar 14 (Finale) – Online Marketing Seminar
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Time
Friday, November 5 at 8:00am – November 7 at 7:00pm
Location Las Vegas
Created By
More Info
If you’ve got a business and you’re trying to use your website as a way to market your business, then I guarantee that learning the best ways to market online EFFECTIVELY will put you MILES ahead of your competition!

(Most businesses have absolutely no idea how to use the Internet to explode their bottom line!)

In fact, this seminar has made a HUGE difference for me in my business.
…
Ever since I started attending (and using what I’ve been learning) from the Big Seminar several years ago, my revenues have increased…dramatically.

That’s because this is the largest Internet marketing seminar
in the U.S. with the best trainers in the industry. All of the faculty members are business owners themselves (many of them self-made multi-millionaires) who are using what they are teaching in their own highly successful businesses.

Doesn’t it make sense to learn from and model those who are already making millions? I think so. In fact, the business owner who runs this seminar, Armand Morin, has an expression worth remembering:

“Success leaves traces.”

Like other seminars, you can learn from the faculty on the stage. But there’s something that makes this one really rock…

You also get to network with the faculty and other business owners…it’s part of the scheduled program! Many of them are world class business marketers. And THAT is what has kept me coming back year after year. I’ve made some amazing connections that have had a direct effect on my bottom line.

I never could have been able to meet such influential people any other way.

In fact, this seminar has created more success stories than any other seminar in the history of Internet Marketing.

The only sad part is that this is the LAST Big Seminar (after 7 years straight!)

But…

It’s going to be a BIG finale worth remembering!

See what I mean and get all the details here:

http://bit.ly/Big-Seminar

I know I wouldn’t miss it for anything! Will I see you there?

If so, let me know, and we’ll get together!

I’ll introduce you to my friends and we can brainstorm some ways to get YOUR website boosting sales and being the vehicle to take your business to a whole new level of success in the coming year! :-)

Hope to see YOU there!

http://bit.ly/Big-Seminar See More

Big Seminar 14 (Finale) – Online Marketing Seminar has no recent posts.

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Tips for Boosting Your Bottom Line This Fall

Sep 06, 2010 in Articles, News Flash, Smart Choices

What better way to kick off the Fall than by getting some useful information on how to effectively promote your business and increase your bottom line?

If that’s what you want, then you’ll want to read this article by my favorite online marketing expert. It cuts to the chase to solve the mystery of effective marketing using the Internet. You’ll find it on this brand new blog especially designed for small businesses.

Small Business Marketing Weekly

Although I’m primarily a freelance bookkeeper and QuickBooks trainer and consultant, I love to learn what makes small businesses really prosper – and apply it to my own, as well as suggest improvements for my clients’ businesses.

I’ve learned a lot through the MANY books I’ve read and seminars I’ve attended. And the vital conclusion I’ve come to is that, as business owners, marketing is really job #1 for all of us. That’s what keeps the sales coming in, which keeps the cash flowing. And as we know, cash is the lifeblood of your entire business! No sales = no business.

And I can tell you honestly, out of everything I’ve studied over the years and all the people I’ve learned from whose techniques I’ve actually used in my own business, there is no one that has given more high value and true nuts-and-bolts information that really works like Jim Edwards.

No one.

So I hope you enjoy this article as much as I did for a big picture reference of what we really must to be doing to pull more business in locally or virtually with our websites (and beyond). This one’s a keeper:

Small Business Marketing Weekly

And it looks like Jim will be writing a series of these helpful articles. I’m definitely going to be following them, so I thought you’d like to know about them too.

Enjoy!

Gabrielle Fontaine, PB
BookkeepingDirect.com

By the way – I’m a long-time member of Jim’s monthly training program, The Net Reporter. As I said, I think he’s the best (and I’m picky!) because he tells it like it is… AND shows you exactly how to market your business effectively online. (My business is proof of that!)

Most of his training, though, is primarily geared toward building an information-product based online business. So I usually have to try and translate what I’m learning to work for my own QuickBooks consulting business.

But this month he’s doing something I’m quite excited about… Tomorrow he’s starting a 2-webinar training series entitled:

“Using Internet Strategies on a Brick and Mortar Business”

No translation needed! So I’ll definitely be attending this one LIVE! If you’d like to attend the first webinar on Tuesday too, just join The Net Reporter and try it out for a month (you can get two of these live webinars AND get access to Jim’ “Fast Track Video Coaching” for less than most other people charge for a single webinar!)

The Net Reporter

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